Fetish, Recognition, RevolutionThis book concerns the role of language in the Indonesian revolution. James Siegel, an anthropologist with long experience in various parts of that country, traces the beginnings of the Indonesian revolution, which occurred from 1945 through 1949 and which ended Dutch colonial rule, to the last part of the nineteenth century. At that time, the peoples of the Dutch East Indies began to translate literature from most places in the world. Siegel discovers in that moment a force within communication more important than the specific messages it conveyed. The subsequent containment of this linguistic force he calls the "fetish of modernity," which, like other fetishes, was thought to be able to compel events. Here, the event is the recognition of the bearer of the fetish as a person of the modern world. |
Contents
The I of a Lingua Franca | 13 |
If I Were a Dutchman | 26 |
What Did Not Happen to Indonesians | 38 |
A Society of Appearances | 48 |
Fetishizing Appearance or Is I a Criminal? | 54 |
Evading Fiction | 68 |
The Ghost of the Lingua Franca | 75 |
Appearances Again | 78 |
The Wish for Hierarchy | 161 |
Vengeance | 169 |
The Impulse toward Hierarchy | 171 |
The Crowd | 174 |
Revolution | 181 |
Collaboration and Cautious Rebellion | 183 |
Suspicion Again | 192 |
Red Money Cautious Rebellion | 197 |
The Camera and the Law | 84 |
Recognition | 95 |
Student Hidjau and The Feeling of Freedom | 97 |
Scandal Women Authors and SinoMalay Nationalism | 115 |
Love Sick or the Failures of the Fetish and of Translation | 134 |
Photographs | 149 |
Revolution Without the Fetish of Modernity Freedom or Death | 208 |
No Entry | 216 |
Pramoedya Ananta Toers Flunky + Maid or Conservative Indonesian Revolutionary Indonesian and the Lack of Indonesian Literature | 231 |
Notes | 255 |